Lending A Hand

July 9, 2000|By DANA CALVO Los Angeles Times

Slumped inside a Tupperware container with no one to talk to, Lamb Chop must have found the yearlong silence intolerable. She couldn't wave her red mittens. She couldn't peer seductively through her mink eyelashes. And she couldn't get answers to the stream of questions that bothered her night and day.

Now, the dark part of life for the 17-inch sock puppet seems to have ended.

"Do I look taller in person?" she demanded on a recent afternoon in Malibu. At arm's length from Lamb Chop sat Mallory Lewis, a television producer and the daughter of the late puppeteer Shari Lewis.

For decades, Lamb Chop and Shari Lewis were pioneers in children's television, winning awards and affection across three generations. They bumped Howdy Doody off network television, dined with three U.S. presidents and testified on Capitol Hill.

But when Shari Lewis died in August 1998 of uterine cancer at age 65, Lamb Chop was set aside, indefinitely.

Last summer, Mallory Lewis pulled Lamb Chop onto her right hand -- a hand that is, by the way, the same size as her mother's, which enables Lamb Chop's "facial expressions" to maintain their integrity.

"I think there's always room for gentle television," Lewis said at her Malibu home. "I have a career as a television producer, but performing with Lamb Chop is in my heart, and it's a way to connect with my mother on a daily basis." (Among the television projects Mallory Lewis has produced are PBS's Charlie Horse Music Pizza, eight videos for A&M Video (Lamb Chop's Play Along) and segments for MTV, the Travel Channel, Real TV and British Sky Broadcasting.)

Lamb Chop's re-entry into make-believe has been helped by an appearance last fall on The Rosie O'Donnell Show; an upcoming merchandising tour in Japan (everything from boxer shorts to a Lamb Chop cell phone clip); and three Lamb Chop DVDs due to be released in the next year.

In May, Lewis carried Lamb Chop up the steps to the stage of Radio City Music Hall to accept (posthumously) Shari Lewis' sixth Daytime Emmy for outstanding performer in a children's series.

"This was in front of the industry, and for Lamb Chop's future, her viability is very important," Lewis said. "All the people who do children's television were there. It was important for them to see Lamb Chop speak and to hear the loving response of the audience."

One of the largest talent agencies in the world, Creative Artists Agency, agreed to take on Lewis (and Lamb Chop) as clients last month.

Mallory Lewis grew up with Lamb Chop. Even when she was chronologically "younger" than Lamb Chop, the puppet was always simply a 6-year-old baby sister, and Mallory maintained seniority. The two had sister-puppet confidentiality that could not be breached, even though Shari Lewis was right there, providing the words Lamb Chop would whisper to Mallory.

When she was 12 years old, Mallory began manipulating Lamb Chop's mouth and face, but she couldn't imitate the mischievous voice of a self-assured little girl with a stuffed-up nose.

By the time she had graduated from Barnard College, Mallory was producing her mother's public television shows that starred Lamb Chop and her friends, Hush Puppy and Charlie Horse.

Lamb Chop was an industry whose appeal was immediate and long-lasting. With Shari's coaxing, Lamb Chop (reluctantly) learned to share, tell the truth and appreciate music -- over and over again, for the children and grandchildren of her original viewers.

Her success began after two performances on The Captain Kangaroo Show in 1957, when Shari Lewis and Lamb Chop were offered their own local show. In 1960, NBC dropped The Howdy Doody Show from its Saturday morning lineup for The Shari Lewis Show. That year, Lewis fought with a network censor because he wanted the word "bellybutton" deleted from one of Lamb Chop's limericks. Lewis managed to keep it in, and the show ran for three years.

Lamb Chop and Shari entertained BBC audiences from 1968 to 1976 each Sunday night, while filming specials on Australian and Canadian television. Later, Shari starred in a succession of national public television series in the United States.

Shari Lewis and Lamb Chop were invited to the White House, under the Carter, Reagan and Bush administrations.

Lamb Chop was not, however, restricted to Hollywood. In 1993 Shari Lewis and Lamb Chop were asked to testify before the House telecommunications subcommittee about the Children's Television Act, a law requiring TV stations to provide educational and informational programming.

For the record, Lamb Chop asked Rep. Edward J. Markey, D-Mass., to have her testimony taken down as a separate statement from Shari's.

Shari Lewis won 12 Emmys, including one she shared with Mallory. To date, they are the only mother-daughter Emmy winners.